Game Review: God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP)

God of War: Chains of Olympus takes the PlayStation 2 series and makes it work …

Sometimes, when playing a game, you get one of those increasingly-rare "wow" moments where you sit back and think, "This is amazing!" It's hard not to have one of those revelations while playing the PSP title God of War: Chains of Olympus for one simple reason: developer Ready at Dawn has taken everything great about the God of War series on the PlayStation 2 and has managed to put it lovingly into a PSP release.

Chains of Olympus is a game that lives on a PSP comfortably; it looks just as good as its console big brothers in the series. It really is an amazing accomplishment, and it shows just how powerful the PSP is as a portable. Its large, wide screen also shows off the graphics to their full extent. If you've ever wanted to sell a friend on the system, you have your newest tool.

Things may be slightly different, but you'll recognize most attacks in Chains of Olympus

But we can only drool over the graphics for so long; the question is whether or not the game is fun. It is, because God of War is fun. This game takes the mechanics, attacks, and style of God of War 1 and 2 and uses them in a new adventure. It doesn't push the series in any major new directions, but it didn't need to: as a prequel to the first two games, this explores who Kratos is and the lengths he will to go to do what he has to do. There is a scene later in the game that involves tapping the O button during a cinema where you're actually asked not only to watch Kratos giving up more of his humanity, but to participate in it. By the end of the game I was more than satisfied with the story and the experience, and also more than ready for the inevitable PlayStation 3 release that is teased about on the game's instruction manual.

The one thing that was a major concern was how the controls would be adapted to the PSP, and in fact, Ready at Dawn did such a great of job of making the controls fluid that I had to go back and play the previous games to see what the changes were. Basically, magic is now mapped to the right shoulder button mixed with the face buttons, and the roll-dodge maneuver is done by holding down both shoulder buttons and then moving in any direction. The controls and attacks are crisp and feel great; this is in no way a "hacked down" version of the title. We're looking at a few control changes, but almost no other compromises have been made.

There are a few gripes here: one of the very few large-scale boss battles happens to open the game, and while God of War always did seek to blow you away in the opening moments of the game, this feels almost like the game shot its load a little too early. The game play also doesn't really get mixed up or changed through the game's six to eight hours; the normal "slide things onto switches" and "use mirrors to aim light" puzzles are here in full force. The main mechanics of God of War are so sharp and satisfying, however, that it's like complaining you're not eating lamb after a great steak dinner. It would have been nice for a few new ideas to pop their heads up, but that's only because I'm looking for at least one slightly negative thing to say about the game.

With minimal to nonexistent load times, a good variety of environments to fight through, and save points liberally spread around the game to help you play in small chunks, this is a shining example of how to take a popular franchise and put it onto a portable.